You don’t necessarily need a dark sky. In fact, the closer you work to your back door the more productive you will be, and work crucial to the profession can be done in twilight or from light polluted sites. I’m fortunate to live under a reasonably dark sky, but to prove this point I recently did an observing session from Sydney Observatory in Australia, in the heart of CBD. Very successful it was, too, and great fun.

As adviser for visual research I’d like invite all visual observers to participate in a first research project: the Dual Maxima Mira Project, instigated by Stan Walker of the VSS. These are long period variables that have double peaks in their light curves. Some of these stars are thought to be undergoing evolutionary changes now, and are bright enough to observe with binoculars; others are definitely challenging. For more information, please contact [cblink=”alan.plummer”]me[/cblink].

We amateurs get paid, too. How? By learning and seeing the sky as few others can do. One can make a point of touring the galaxies, nebulae, clusters, beautiful colored stars, planets, and asteroids along the way while participating in a wonderful science.